he's had the ultimate washington education so we see two changes in him. one is the philosophical change we've been talking about. this is the president who didn't always say what he really thought in the first term. when there were terrible storms that leveled parts of missouri he flew down there and he gave consoling speeches in which he talked about those storms as acts of god which really angered some of the climate advocates because they said how can you talk about this like an act of god when we believe that this is linked to climate change and we can do something about it? gun control. this is a president who did very little on gun control in his first term and within hours of the newtown shooting you could see how that changed. he came out and made that first statement and you said to yourself this is a president who's going to try to do something about gun control. the second question is how much smarter he's gotten about the washington maneuvering. the white house did do a better job at playing out the recent series of debt and budget negotiation